P. O. W. Read Free Page B

and being in the clean rice sack. She was beautiful.
    “What do you think they’re going to do with it?” Barnett was afraid to say what he thought.
    “I don’t know… maybe make it a camp pet….” Garibaldi wasn’t going to scare the boy and say what was really on his mind.
    The conversation stopped when the old Montagnard the NVA used as a runner approached their cages with a small bucket of rice.
     Barnett pushed his wooden bowl over to the small opening where the old man scooped out two handfuls of the bland food, using
     his own dirty hand as a spoon. Barnett nodded his thanks, and the old man smiled a near toothless grin and reached into his
     waistband and removed two small bananas and a wild bird’s egg. He patted the egg gently and said something in his native Bru
     language. Barnett nodded again and smiled.
    “I think the old man likes you.” Garibaldi spoke from the shadows of his cage. The sun was setting, sending mixed rays of
     light through the heavy green vegetation.
    “I don’t know why….” Barnett slipped his arm through the cage and tossed one of the bananas over to the colonel. He had gotten
     very good at tossing objects, and the banana landed within an inch of the bamboo bars.
    “Thanks….” Garibaldi picked up the much-needed fruit that wasn’t a normal part of their diet and ate it slowly. “He might
     feel sorry for you because of the way James harasses you… and it might have something to do with his daughter….”
    “Who’s she?”
    “The one James is living with in the village.” Garibaldi turned to listen to a noise coming from the South Vietnamese POW
     compound and continued talking. “I don’t think the Bru like it when the NVA take their children and give them to others.”
    “Well, James treats her like shit.” Barnett looked over at the guard, who was ignoring them. Some of the guards didn’t care
     if they talked to each other, but the new ones, directly from units fighting in South Vietnam, would harass them for hours.
     The NVA soldiers who had been wounded in combat and were recuperating from their wounds were the worst.
    The sound of people approaching stopped Barnett and Garibaldi from talking. A squad of NVA soldiers approached in the dim
     light, dragging a South Vietnamese POW. Garibaldi recognized the man from the first day that he had arrived. He was a second
     lieutenant from a unit near Da Nang, who had been captured with some of the survivors from his Ranger platoon.
    Barnett sat cross-legged on his mat and watched. The NVA sergeant climbed up on Mother Kaa’s cage and opened the trap door.
     He beckoned for the squad to drag the South Vietnamese officer up on the structure. The man realized what they were going
     to do and started to put up a struggle. They had him almost to the entrance of the cage when he stopped fighting them and
     began talking in a very humble tone of voice. Barnett couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he guessed that the lieutenant
     was begging for mercy. The NVA sergeant grunted and cuffed the lieutenant before shoving him into the cage with his foot.
    Barnett could not remember a longer night in his life. The lieutenant cried and begged the guard to help him and finally ended
     up crying a series of long wails each time the reptile touched him. Twice during the night Barnett smelled cigarette smoke
     coming from behind his cage and guessed that Sweet Bitch was listening to the South Vietnamese officer from the shadows.
    It was near dawn when the sounds of shuffling and crying ceased in the dark cage. Barnett could hear the snake slithering
     over the bamboo matting that lined her cage floor, but no sounds came from the lieutenant.
    Dawn revealed an answer to the mystery. The South Vietnamese lieutenant had removed his pants and had torn strips from the
     legs to make a rope. He had crudely hanged himself—or, more accurately, he had slowly strangled himself with the homemade
     rope using the bamboo